Jamie DeBree's Blog, page 58
July 7, 2011
Code Name: Succulent – Life in a Box
It takes me almost exactly 1 minute 30 seconds longer to get dressed when I have to stop and think about what I'm going to wear in the morning.
Now that I've scared off most everyone who would have left a snarky comment on how I'm far too organized for anyone's good, we can settle in for a chat about living life inside a box.
The vast majority of my day is routine and schedule oriented. And I think my major fear with allowing myself room to pursue hobbies outside of writing was that writing would get squeezed out somehow. The control freak part of my brain has been just screaming for the past couple of weeks, "You've got to get this creative stuff organized! Like yesterday! Or the world will explode!"
Okay, maybe not quite so dramatic, but you catch my drift.
In any case – the creative part of my brain has been like an overly-enthusiastic puppy as my analytical side has been trying to reorganize my routines and schedule to fit hobbies back into my life. My thought process is something like this (sound familiar? All links non-affiliate.):
Left brain (LB ): My PDA is obsolete. I need to replace the technology before it dies, and I'm left with nothing to track my routines/schedule with. And it would be nice to have a bigger screen…
Right brain (RB ): Didya see that cool tablet Costco has on sale? I bet that would keep a calendar, and it's way cool. Probably has games too. And look at the colorful screen! Shiny!
LB: *spends two weeks reading/watching reviews, examining the tablet and all others in its class to make sure it's the best out for the value at the time* Okay, sure, I think that will work. *cringes at cost while writing the check and politely arguing with apple fan boy clerk about purchasing non-iStuff tablet*
RB: *Gazes dreamily at box*
LB: Let's get this thing organized. I need programs for shopping lists, my Google calendars, email, blog reading, social media, and something to keep track of my workouts. A separate task list too, with reminder alarms. I'll need an office suite if we can find one, so I can carry spreadsheets, finish blog posts and do some light idea notations. Oh, and a note program of some sort. *spends hours paging through apps, reading reviews, and looking at screen shots*
RB: *looks over shoulder* Hey, that shopping list looks like a notepad – it's got a coffee stain and everything! We should get that one. And that task manager with the pink squid. He's cute, don't you think? What kind of alarm sounds do we get with that? OMG – look at that little android bug workout program! And that one in a tuxedo – what's he do? Can we take him home? Please? Look! Digital sticky notes!
LB: Well, it would be sort of handy to have an inventory of my closet. Would help during those yearly clothes shopping trips. Looks like it has a wardrobe planner too, so I could pick out clothes ahead of time. Save me that extra minute and a half in the mornings.
And that workout program is great – a place to log meals, quick and easy logging for workouts, automatic calorie deficit planning…sure, that will work fine. Not sure about the pink squid…but he integrates with Google calendars? Okay then, we'll keep him too. And yeah, that shopping list program looks robust enough to handle the job – the pantry list will be handy. Looks like we just need an office suite now…
RB: They all look boring. Sorry, can't help you there. But you should download that row counter for crochet projects, 'cause it's a fun gadget, don't you think?
LB: Fine. I'll go back over the office suite reviews myself. A row counter, you say? That could be very useful, actually. *downloads* I wish the Total Gym people would put those training deck cards I use for workouts in an app…
RB: Look at this cool photo album thingy on the tablet. Why don't you just take pictures of the cards, then make "workout albums" to flip through?
LB: Hey, great idea! *high fives*
I think you get the idea here, right? This is representative of the near constant chatter in my head between the two halves of my brain…it gets a bit chaotic sometimes, but normally it all ends up creatively organized.
Here's the thing though – if I were just blindly trying to get all these things taken care of without a schedule or routines, my life would be a chaotic mess. It would be too much to handle, and too overwhelming to even consider. By laying them all out in an organized fashion and using programs to help me keep track (whether on my PDA, my computer, the tablet, or good old paper calendar), I can do more things, and have more variety in my life. And that's what this whole project is about – enjoying many things, while still taking care of the essentials.
For those of you still hanging around, here's how I know that it takes me 1.5 minutes longer if I don't know what I'm going to wear in the mornings. My workday morning routine is this (very, very rarely deviates, because "autopilot" is the only gear I have before 9am):
6am: Get up, let dogs out/in, feed dogs, take vitamins, check schedule
6:30am: Shower
7:15am: Wake husband up, push him to the shower
7:50am: Turn on electric kettle, put on makeup while water heats
8:00am: Pour tea, set timer for 4 minutes, get dressed
8:04am: Let dogs out/in, strain tea into travel mugs, get hubby his vitamins and grab tea/breakfast on the way out the door.
When I know what I'm going to wear, I'm always in the kitchen 1.5 minutes before the tea timer goes off. When I have to decide on the fly, I'm rushing out to the kitchen as the timer goes off. 
Next week, I'll report on how my hobbies are specifically fitting into my schedule – and how the whole experiment is working for me. I'm still sort of in a state of flux at the moment, so while things are less chaotic than they were, I'm still working on slotting things in. We'll see how it looks in another week…
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July 6, 2011
Writing Notes: Writing Short
I've written about this topic before in a different vein (along with some tangential ranting), but it's on my mind these days. Once I start writing, I'm pretty much following my characters around, trying to capture their experiences and emotions on the page. And sometimes I get impatient with them, because the story takes so much longer than I wanted it to. I want to yell at them, "When will it end? Can we wrap this up, please?"
It doesn't work, by the way. Yelling at my characters, I mean. Some authors appear to have "fourth wall" privileges wherein they can converse with their characters – I don't. The minute I start trying to do that, having to listen to them (ie, write them) in the first person, I cease hearing *their* personality, and my own starts to creep in. I need distance in order to keep myself separate from them, to keep my head out of theirs.
But I digress, yet again. What were we talking about? Right. Finding the end.
So my "natural writing length", if I just write without worrying about how long the story will be, is somewhere around 30-50k words for a complete story. I don't know why or how this happens…it's not something I have to think about, it just happens. If I want to write longer or shorter, I have to find ways to either add material (which I very rarely do), or cut things down (which I do often, usually right in the first draft…I've been known to delete entire scenes that just didn't work, right after I wrote them). At least once a week I'll write a couple hundred words, realize that it doesn't make any sense for the story to go that way, delete it and start all over.
This year, I'm writing novelettes (stories over 5k, and under 20k) in erotica, and with any luck a couple thrillers too. My goal is 10k words each (and the first two were under). Now I can't write long to save my life – not only do I have to add an insane amount of material, but I get bored with the story after awhile (don't look at me like that…I get bored easily and I have ideas coming out my ears for new stories). But I'm really enjoying the challenge to write short – or I was, until my most recent story, which recently surpassed 13k words. Dang it.
The whole point of writing short for me is to…well, write short. To pack as much story into a small space as humanly possible. And overshooting my word count as I have means that I failed somewhere…in this case, I didn't narrow the original storyline down far enough before I started writing, and I set the pace too slow for 10k words. These characters fascinated me and I wanted to slow down and watch them more closely (sounds like animals in a zoo, doesn't it? And they are, sort of…). It's too late to turn back now – the story won't work if I cut any of it, because it's a natural progression and has a very obvious pace that needs to be maintained.
In any case, I doubt readers will complain at getting more story, so it's not a tragedy or anything…just a personal failure as far as my short story challenge goes. Thankfully, I'm under no publisher pressure to meet or exceed a specific word count either (that would drive me nuts, I think – the story needs what it needs).
Still, I really want to learn to comfortably write within that 10k range. I think it's the perfect size story for a lunch break or before-bed read, and it challenges me to condense the story to its core. I honestly think that writing short is one of the most challenging and rewarding exercises a writer can do, and I think it helps with longer forms as well.
After novelettes, I want to master flash fiction (1k words or less).
So I'll finish this contrary novelette, and then do my best to keep the next story within bounds. A simple goal, and solid resolution seem to be key, so I'll choose my plot very carefully.
Do you naturally write short or long? When is the last time you tried writing something out of your own comfort zone as far as length goes? **Please
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July 4, 2011
Weekly News & Goals 7/4/11
To my fellow Americans, Happy
Independence Day! Careful not to set anything on fire tonight, K?
This whole "spend time doing
non-writing things" has thrown me for a loop...made more difficult
than it needed to be by the decision to transition all of my
organizational stuff from my beloved Palm TX to a new tablet
computer, home screen shown above (Acer Iconia A500). As so many
things do, this all started with a great Costco deal...gotta love
that store. Anyways, more on that Thursday when I reveal my secret
for getting things done and having time leftover. A word of warning
though – if you aren't the routine/schedule oriented type, the
post will probably just make you either shake your head, or cuss me
out. So read at your own risk (I will have some cool app
recommendations, for anyone using an android operating system).
In other news, the Goodreads giveaway
for The Biker's Wench is in full swing, so feel free to sign
up if you'd like the chance to win a print copy. I finished
formatting the print version yesterday and submitted it to the
printer for review, so barring any major issues with my files, I
should have the first copies late next week. Exciting! I'll be
getting the ebooks formatted this week, and submitted to review sites
as time permits. Watch for the pre-order link at the BSB store in the
next day or so. Signed paperbacks will be $9.99 each plus shipping,
and will include a free copy of the ebook.
This Week on The Variety Pages
Wednesday:
Writing Notes – When will it end?
Thursday: Code
Name: Succulent – Life in a Box
Friday:
Chapter 8 of Falling in Public
Sunday:
Weekly Archive
Elsewhere
Tuesday:
Chapter 8 of The Minister's Maid at Fantasy
Ranch Novels
Tuesday:
Patriotic Nails at NailArt
Tuesday
Thursday:
Sales Report for June at Beyond
the Words
Saturday:
Tea review at Tea onTap
Sunday:
Progress Report at Body
in Motion
Goal Reports
Some of you may have noticed I was
running behind pretty much all week last week. It started off pretty
badly, and while it did get better, my focus really didn't. I got
the essentials done, and that's about it as far as writing/business
goals went. Personal goals were pretty much a wash – I did weed for
an hour, but sadly, that's about it for that too.
However, as mentioned above, I did do a
lot of re-organizing and schedule-refining. It's very
time-consuming to move and basically rebuild a system that's been
in place for....well, heck, I can't even remember how many years,
and some things got lost in the shuffle (others got purposefully left
out or dropped, which was good). But I finished up the last of that
last night, so I anticipate a much smoother week ahead.
Goals for the Week
Writing
Complete all 5 serial scenes ahead
of time
Beta read MS
Business
Order ARC's of The Biker's
Wench
Put up pre-order link for signed
copies
List Library Thing ebook giveaway
Send review copies of TBW out
Finish Author Services FAQ page
Finish submissions page
Catch up with bookkeeping
Personal
Workout 5 nights
Weed 1 hour
Get to bed by 1am
Pick an easy pattern and start a
crochet project
That's the news from up here –
what's your week look like? Anything fun and exciting? Read any
good books lately?
**Please
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July 3, 2011
Weekly Archive 6/26 - 7/3
Fiction
Romantic Suspense
Chapter 7 of The Minister's Maid (FantasyRanchNovels.com)
Chapter 7 of Falling in Public (The Variety Pages)
Erotica
Chapter 17 of The Mechanic (TrinityMarlow.com - Adults only, NSFW)
Chapter 18 of The Mechanic (TrinityMarlow.com - Adults only, NSFW)
Thriller/Suspense
Chapter 48 of Angel Eyes (AlexWesthaven.com)
Writing/Reading/Publishing
Writing Notes: Epilogues & Cliffhangers (The Variety Pages)
Web Store - Yea or Nay? (Beyond the Words)
Hobbies/Other
Nail Art
Malibu Pearls (Nail Art Tuesday)
Health & Personal Wellness
July 1, 2011
Serial Novel: Falling in Public, Ch. 7
Ch.1|Ch. 2|Ch. 3|Ch. 4|Ch. 5|Ch. 6
Falling in Public
Chapter 7
Holly melted as Eddie's lips met hers, softly at first, then more demanding. Her hands slid up around his neck as he eased her lower on the couch and settled between her legs. The bulge in his jeans pressed against her pelvis and she shifted with a wimper, needing him just a little lower.
"Easy," he whispered, trailing kisses down her neck. "We've got plenty of time."
Holly pulled him closer, her fingers sliding up under his shirt over smooth, taut skin as her lips found his shoulder. It wasn't true, of course. She was incredibly lucky to be here just for the night. How many women would give anything to be in her place right now? But tomorrow she'd go back to her hotel and probably never see this man again, except on TV.
Just like everyone else.
The realization was like a glass of cold water in her face, and she pushed at his chest until he pulled back to look at her. Concern etched his face, along with something that resembled fear. But what did he have to be scared of?
"I..." she hesitated, not really sure how to say what she needed to say. "Maybe this isn't a good idea. For me, I mean. I'm sure you're used to one-night stands, but I don't normally..." she let the thought go as his expression turned angry.
"Sure. No problem," he said, pushing to his feet and stepping back from her, hands up defensively. "Rockers sleep with a different groupie every night, so women don't mean anything to them. That's what the television says, so it must be true, right?" He shook his head, running one hand through his hair with the other on a hip.
"I just thought..." She bit her lower lip, guilt creeping in. He was right. She'd stereotyped him without even really getting to know him, and she'd been flirting with him, leading him on anyways. He had every right to be angry with her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have assumed. It's just - I don't want to do anything I'll regret later. That either of us will regret."
He laughed then, a cold, empty sound. "So now I'm someone you'd regret doing, because apparently my profession requires me to sleep around. Perfect. Any other insults you'd like to toss at me before we're done? 'Cause you're doing a great job so far. If I didn't feel like a fucking rock star before, I sure do now."
Holly blinked back stray tears threatening to spill over. She'd made a complete mess out of this, and it was just getting worse by the second. "I should go. I'll...um...thanks for saving me, earlier tonight, I mean. If you'll just show me how to get back downstairs, I'll get out of your hair." She stepped around him, and grasped the handle of the door they'd come through just a few minutes before, pulling hard. But it wouldn't budge. She tried again, feeling rather than hearing him come up behind her, heat from his body making her panic as she realized how close he was. Her writer's imagination kicked into overtime, and she froze, wondering if this was the end. Would he kill her for refusing him? He didn't seem like that kind of a person, but they never did, did they?
"Stay." The low command uttered in her ear did crazy things to her skin as his arms wrapped slowly, gently around her midsection. "You might regret it, hell, I already do, but there's something about you. Something that makes me need you more than I've needed anyone in a long time. I can't explain it." He pulled her close to him, cuddling her to his chest as one hand slid up to cup the underside of a breast. Her throat tightened at his overwhelming presence as he caressed her, his breath warm on her neck.
"Please stay, Holly."
Enjoy this installment? Try Desert Heat, available now at:
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords | Diesel | All Romance
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June 30, 2011
Code Name: Succulent – Slow Growth
This is a "ZZ" plant, otherwise
known as Zamioculcas zamiifolia. Normally
a slow-growing plant from South Africa, it isn't really a succulent
(it's actually an aroid), but it's certainly tough enough to hang
with the rest of my easy-care houseplant gang. I bought it expecting
that, like the other South African plants, it would look pretty and
do nothing for a long while.
But
see that long stalk in the front leaning off to the left (as we look
at it), with the smaller leaves just starting to unfurl at the top?
That particular stalk was all of about four inches high when I
brought it home just a couple weeks ago. Now it's going on a foot
and a half, which is just crazy quick growth for these plants.
Apparently it approves of where I put it, and the fact that I haven't
watered it since I stuck it there.
Actually,
I've seen growth on all of those stalks, though none as dramatic as
that young one. I've always loved aroids, and they tend to grow
well for me, so I'm glad I finally got my hands on one of these
(I've been wanting one ever since they first came to market – of
course they were rare and hard to find then. I bought this one at
Lowes.).
I can
hear your thoughts about now.
Um, that's great. You know you
titled this "slow growth", right?
Indeed I did.
Here's the thing. I planned this post on Sunday (I loosely plan
everything out when I'm writing out my goals for the week). At that
time, I was just barely recovering from a very stressful week at the
day job, and coming to grips with the fact that I had to go back
again in just a few hours. All that week and weekend I'd been
fighting my resolve to do things other than writing with my free
time, because I was behind, and I truly just wanted to crawl into my
fiction and escape the world. But I stuck to my schedule and kept the
writing in its place while I did other things...like play Facebook
games (I only play two – Cafe World and Farm Town, because my
husband plays those and we can enjoy that together). I'd gotten my
nail blog updated, posted a tea review, and started thinking about
the crochet magazines I have in the office. I weeded and found some
surprisingly healthy and lovely plants in the garden, and I found
something new to fixate on for awhile (more on that next week – it
will be a short-lived fixation, long-term addition to my life).
Basically, I lived
life for awhile. Instead of escaping into a fictional world, I
actually participated in the one going on around me (well, with the
exception of FB games – that counts as fiction *and* social, since
I'm talking too/trading with people there). And I'll admit, it
was stressful. Changing routines and habits is insanely stressful for
me, even when it's to do something fun. Yes, I know that's
screwed up. That's how I'm wired, so that's what I work with.
So I felt like I was moving at a snail's pace, and it really wasn't
until I sat down to write this post that I realized just how far I've
come already. It sort of snuck up on me.
Just like my ZZ
plant.
I still have a long
way to go – and I won't be comfortable again until everything's
slotted neatly into my daily & weekly routines. But even just the
fact that books and the publishing industry isn't the only thing I
have to talk about anymore is really good progress, and while it's
always going to be a major part of my life, I can see where there's
room for other things too. It will just take some time to adjust.
And maybe a new
organizational system.
Those of you who
prefer not to work within a set "system" might want to skip next
week's post. I'm going all "gadget girl" and
"crazy-organizing-lady" with the purchase of my first tablet
computer today, and next week I'll share how I use lists, calendars
and reminders to keep my days running smoothly (for the most part).
Those of you who like gadgets and are interested in routines and
schedules...well, you'll probably want to tune in next Thursday.
If you made it this
far, tell me something you're interested in that's not book
related (or kid-related if you're a parent...since kids tend to
rule your life more than even writing).
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June 29, 2011
Writing Notes: Epilogues & Cliffhangers
I've never been big on epilogues. Sure, sometimes I'll finish reading a book and wonder what happened next, but not very often. Normally when the main plot is done, I'm satisfied. I often just skim epilogues if they're provided, to see if there's something else I simply won't be complete without knowing.
When I was going through the edits for The Biker's Wench, my editor made a few suggestions for what she'd like to know near the end about how things wrapped up (and I specifically asked for those, because I knew the end was rushed and I wasn't really sure how to fix it – editors, beta readers and friends are invaluable for this type of input). They were all good suggestions and I really wanted to include them, and remembered that I'd originally planned to come back to one sub-plot that I never actually got back to.
The problem was, none of this stuff was really germane to the core story, so slipping it into another chapter, or working it into the last scenes just wasn't really feasible. It would have broken the flow of the main climatic scenes. So I sat down and wrote a "last chapter" to tack onto the end…only there was too much of a break in the time line for it to flow well that way. I tend to write as close to "real time" as possible, so when I jumped six months out for the last chapter, it felt like it needed a more definitive line between the end of the book, and the "rest of the story".
So I reluctantly deleted "Chapter whatever-number-it-was" and typed "Epilogue" instead.
Which probably should have been the end of it, but I am more or less incapable of writing a scene without conflict. I wish I could say it's just because I work that hard at it, but the fact is, I get bored easily while writing, and conflict just sort of happens. The subplot I wanted to revisit is really a huge deal in its own right for Monica (my heroine) – and could easily have taken up another book. But I didn't realize that at the time, I just wrote, and let the story continue naturally, as I normally do.
Long story short(ish), my epilogue ends in a damn cliffhanger for that subplot I went back to. Those of you who follow my author page on Facebook might have seen my little temper tantrum about that. I hate cliffhangers at the end of a book (or TV season), even when they're more or less benign, so I could not *believe* I wrote one. I'm okay with them if the next book is available immediately, but not if I have to wait longer than…say, a week. Unfortunately, readers will have to wait until the end of book 2 for that particular subplot to be revisited. But at least book 2 is being serialized on my Fantasy Ranch blog, so readers could follow along with the draft if they simply can't wait for the polished version. But also unfortunately, said subplot will hit a "to be continued" stage there too. And it's not my own fault this time, it's my editor's, who gave me all kinds of cool little suggestions for threading this through the next several books (or a short story, I haven't decided which yet).
So there you have it. With my latest book, I've included two things that I normally either don't like, or am ambivalent towards…simply because they work, and that's what the story needed. Never say never, I guess.
How do you feel about epilogues – do you read them or skim? Cliffhangers – yea or nay?
One more thing - if you want to win an ARC of The Biker's Wench (in print), the Goodreads contest is live now...go sign up! **Please
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June 28, 2011
On the Bookshelf: An Uncommon Family by Christa Polkinhorn
AN UNCOMMON FAMILY
by
Christa Polkinhorn
Published by Bookworm Press
Copyright © 2011 by Christa Polkinhorn
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Karla licked the crispy cone, trying to catch the sliding droplets before they hit the ground. The raspberry ice cream was a dark purple, her favorite color. She wrinkled her nose as she caught another whiff of exhaust from the busy street along the Limmat River in the city of Zurich. It was August and hot in Switzerland. The six-year-old girl scanned the scenery in front of her with dreamy eyes.
A longish canoe was sliding by a tourist boat on the river. People with funny-looking sun hats and dark glasses sat on the benches of the boat. Along the river on the other side, the built-together stone houses looked like a row of uneven different-colored teeth, gray, yellow, white, and some with a tint of orange. Behind the houses, on top of the hill, the linden trees at the park shimmered in their pale-green foliage and a curtain of dark-green ivy hid part of the gray granite wall.
Karla took another lick from her ice-cream cone, then turned around and peered through the window of the art shop, where her aunt picked up two framed pictures. When she looked back at the sidewalk, her breath caught.
"Mama?" she whispered.
She saw the woman only from behind, but the bounce in her step, the long, reddish-blond hair flowing down her back, swaying left and right, the tall, slender figure—it must be her mother. She tossed the rest of the ice cream into the trash can, got up, and ran after the woman.
"Mama!" she called as the woman got ready to cross the street. The light turned from blinking red to solid red, just as the woman reached the other side. Karla rushed after her, barely aware of the honking around her or of the shrill warning bell of the blue-and-white streetcar. She heard someone yell at her but by then she had arrived at the other side. The woman was walking along the river toward the Lake of Zurich.
"Mama, wait!" Karla bumped into someone.
"Watch it, kiddo." A man stepped aside.
"Mama . . ."
The woman finally turned around and looked back, scanning the people behind her, then walked on. Karla stopped dumbfounded. It was the face of a stranger.
A wave of despair washed over her. Not believing that she could have been so wrong, she started to run again. She didn't see the slight indentation in the pavement. As she fell, she barely noticed the searing pain in her knees; the disappointment hurt more. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed. Mama would have helped her. Mama would have picked her up, hugged her, and even sang a little tune to her to make her feel better. But her mother was gone.
"Are you hurt, honey?" a dark voice said. Karla felt a hand on her back. "Come on, let me see."
A pair of strong arms lifted her up. She looked into a face with a gray-white beard and kind, blue eyes below thick tufts of eyebrows. The man was tall and sturdy. He had wildish white hair. He reminded her of Saint Nicholas. But it was summer and Saint Nicholas only appeared in December.
"Are you here alone?" he asked. "Where's your mother?"
The question brought a new flood of tears. "I thought it was Mama," Karla managed to say, her chest heaving with sobs.
"Karla, what happened? Why did you run away?" Aunt Anna came rushing toward her, clutching her purse and a large package. "I thought I'd lost you. Jesus, what happened to your knees?" She bent down, put the package on the concrete and examined Karla's legs. Brushing a strand of wavy brown hair out of her face, she peered at the man with gray-blue eyes, the color of ice. "What's going on here?"
"I just happened to walk by when she fell," he explained. "She said something about looking for her mother. Are you her mother?"
Anna shook her head. "No, I'm her aunt. Her mother . . . died half a year ago."
"I'm so sorry." The old man gently touched Karla's cheek. "But she thought she saw her mother."
Anna sighed. "She still hasn't accepted the truth." She turned to Karla. "Tell me what happened, sweetie?"
Karla told her between sobs that a woman had walked by who looked exactly like her mama.
"But you know that's not possible, don't you?" Aunt Anna hugged her. Karla leaned her face against Anna's chest and poured her sorrow into her sweater. It was soft but didn't smell like her mama's. Anna waited for her to calm down. "We have to take care of your knees."
"There's a pharmacy right over there. I'm sure they have something to clean the wound and some bandages. May I?" Saint Nicholas gave Anna an inquiring look.
Anna nodded and the man lifted Karla up. His thick hair tickled her cheek. Karla wrinkled her nose. He gave off a faint whiff of smoke, which reminded her of Anna's woodstove. It felt a little comforting.
At the pharmacy, a friendly lady took care of Karla's knees. She wiped them clean, trying not to hurt Karla, who flinched and gave an occasional sob. "Sorry, hon, but we don't want it to get infected."
While the woman bandaged Karla's legs, Anna unwrapped the package she had been carrying. She handed Karla one of the pictures and held the other one up for her to see. "Don't they look beautiful?"
Karla nodded with a weak smile. They did look nice. She barely recognized them again behind the glass and surrounded by a fine wooden frame. One of them showed a woman, sitting on a chair and holding a little girl in her arm. The woman had long reddish-brown hair and the girl's hair was black. They were sitting in front of a house. The stones in the wall had an irregular shape; they looked a little bit like cobblestones. It had taken Karla a while to make them look right. The other picture showed a tree with large purple and cream-colored blossoms. It was the chestnut tree in front of Karla's old home. She had painted the pictures with her favorite pastel pens.
"They're gorgeous," Saint Nicholas said in his deep voice. "Who painted those?"
"Karla did," Aunt Anna said.
Saint Nicholas stared at her, then at the pictures, then at Karla. "How old is she?"
"Six," Karla said, brushing the last tears off her face. Anna handed her a Kleenex.
"And she painted those by herself, without help?" The man squinted as he scanned the pictures. The wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes deepened. He truly did look like Saint Nicholas.
"Yes," Anna said.
"This child is very talented. Does she get any instruction?"
"I'm actually looking for a teacher for her. She loves to draw and paint. If it was up to her, she'd do it all day long. And it seems to help her with . . . you know, the loss."
"Amazing." Saint Nicholas shook his head and continued to scan the pictures. "Well, I happen to be a painter myself. I also teach a few children." He looked at Karla and Anna with a serious face. "I'd love to have her as a student."
"I'll think about it. That would be great," Anna said.
"Why don't you check me out?" The man pulled his wallet from his back pocket, opened it, and took out a small gray card. "Here is my address and phone number and on the back a few references." He handed Anna the card. "Whatever you decide to do though, you don't want a talent like this go to waste."
Anna studied the card. "Very interesting, Mr. Bergman."
"Call me Jonas," the man said.
"Anna," Karla's aunt said as the two shook hands.
"You're not Saint Nicholas?" Karla asked, surprised.
Aunt Anna and the man laughed. "No, I'm sorry. You think I look like him?" He brushed through his wavy white hair.
Karla nodded. "But you wouldn't come in summer, would you?" She looked down at her neatly wrapped knees. The talk of drawing and painting had pulled her out of her deep misery. "Are you going to teach me?"
The man smiled at her. "You talk this over with your aunt, all right?" Then he glanced at his watch. "Oops. I guess I missed my appointment."
"I'm so sorry," Anna said. "We caused you all this trouble."
"Don't worry. No problem at all." He bent down and put a hand on Karla's shoulder. "And, Karla, I know how much it hurts. I lost my dear wife a few years ago. We were together for over twenty years. I still miss her. But I can promise you, things will get better with time."
Karla took a deep breath and nodded. She had heard the words many times before. "Maja lost her mother, too."
"Maja is a friend of hers, a girl from Croatia," Anna explained.
At home, in their house in a small town near Zurich, Aunt Anna fixed lunch. She heated up the leftover bean and vegetable soup and made grilled cheese sandwiches with tomatoes. The smell of food awakened Karla's appetite. She was quiet and thoughtful but no longer desperate.
"He was a nice man," she said, folding the colorful paper napkins she had made herself with potato stamps. She put them on the blue-and-white placemats on the oak-wood table in the kitchen.
"Would you like to take drawing and painting lessons from him?" Anna poured the soup into bowls and slid the toasted sandwiches onto the plates.
Karla nodded. "Yeah, that'd be cool." She smiled and traced her finger along the spots on the tabletop, where the sunlight, filtered by the leaves of the magnolia tree in front of the kitchen window, had sketched a pattern of light and shadows.
"Cool, huh?" Anna smiled and gave the girl a hug.
An Uncommon Family is available in ebook at: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords
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June 27, 2011
Weekly News & Goals 6/26/11
There's been a whirlwind of activity
behind the scenes lately as I prepare The Biker's Wench for
release. Day job stress isn't helping with that at all, but I'm
still cruisin' along. I'm happy to say that the edits are done,
ISBN's have been assigned, and I've set up a Goodreads giveawayfor 5 ARC's that should be starting today (pending GR approval).
I'm going to see about setting up a Library Thing giveaway for
ebooks next weekend. I'll be setting up a pre-order link for signed
print copies later this week.
FantasyRanchNovels.com and
JamieDeBree.com have both been updated, and the first three chapters
of The Biker's Wench are now available free in .pdf format –
feel free to pass them around at will.
Whew! Lots of stuff, like I said, but
good, fun stuff. It's always exciting to release another book, and
I'm doubly excited about this one because it's the start of a
series that I hope I'll be writing for a long time.
With all that out of the way for now,
here's the line-up for this week:
This Week on The Variety Pages
Tuesday: Excerpt by Christa
Polkinhorn
Wednesday: Writing Notes –
Epilogues
Thursday: Code Name: Succulent –
Slow Growth
Friday: Chapter 7 of Falling
in Public
Sunday: Weekly Archive
Elsewhere
Tuesday: Chapter 7 of The
Minister's Maid at Fantasy Ranch Novels
Tuesday: Malibu Pearls at NailArt Tuesday
Thursday: Pros & Cons of Web
Stores at Beyond the Words
Saturday: Tea review at Tea onTap
Sunday: Progress Report at Body
in Motion
Goal Reports
The serial scenes all got done, as did
the edits for TBW, so that was all good. The erotic short still isn't
finished, and it's not my fault, dang it. The beauty of
self-publishing is that I don't have to hold myself to any specific
word count, which is a darn good thing here, because these characters
simply need the time to work through all this emotional hoopla. Yes,
erotica is all about the sex, but in my world, sex and emotion go
together, no matter what. So while this book is due out in July, I'm
not forcing it to conform to specific rules just to suit my
publishing schedule. Still, it's irritating that it isn't done
yet...
I got about half of what I wanted to
done on the business end. I wanted to pick up my promotion a bit, but
the day job soundly got in the way of that. Coming home after a
super-stressful day does not lead to feeling social for me – it
makes me want to hide from the world, and hide I did. I also failed
to get my free flash posted, and let the bookkeeping slide. But
making good headway on web site updates and getting the back-end
stuff done on TBW was still good progress.
My personal goals went okay – I
worked out five days for the week, and caught up on my serial
reading, but otherwise let the rest slide.
I'm in for another stressful week at
work, so while I'd like to be optimistic, I'm afraid it's going
to be more of the same for the next few days at least. But hopefully
things will get better in July, and I can go back to my normal,
happily semi-social self.
Goals for the Week
Writing
5 serial scenes
Write out quick synopsis for two
new stories (to get them out of my head)
Beta read an ms for a friend
Business
Format TBW for print, upload files
Order ARC's of TBW
Figure out LibraryThing's ebook
giveaways
Ebook formatting for TBW
Start submitting TBW to review
sites
Update BSB web site/store
Personal
Workout 6 times
Weed for 1 hour
Try to stay calm & focused at
work
Leave work at work in the evenings
– no bringing the stress home
That's what's going on around here.
What's up with you? Any big news? Little news? Gossip?
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June 26, 2011
Weekly Archive: June 19 - 25, 2011
Fiction
Romantic Suspense
Chapter 6 of The Minister's Maid (FantasyRanchNovels.com)
Chapter 6 of Falling in Public (The Variety Pages)
Erotica
Chapter 15 of The Mechanic (TrinityMarlow.com - Adults only, NSFW)
Chapter 16 of The Mechanic (TrinityMarlow.com - Adults only, NSFW)
Thriller/Suspense
Chapter 47 of Angel Eyes (AlexWesthaven.com)
Writing/Reading/Publishing
Writing Notes: Trust the Characters (The Variety Pages)
Newscast & Weekly News (Snake Bites)
Hobbies/Other
Nail Art
Tanzy Citrus Clay Cane Art (Nail Art Tuesday)
Tea
Review: Pure Matcha Black (Tea on Tap)
Health & Personal Wellness
